


Sleepless Nights

by captainhurricane, falsemessiah



Series: Where There's a Will, There's a Wake [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Drugs, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 14:29:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5970340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhurricane/pseuds/captainhurricane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsemessiah/pseuds/falsemessiah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dead don't stay dead. Not when they could bring things to life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless Nights

He catches glimpses of the world around him, the emptiness that's hangs in the air when the remaining three of their once whole dream pack gather around his bed with the depressing medical equipment and the clock like beep of his slowed pulse. The atmosphere between his subconscious state and their mourning for the loss of two friends. They'd break away but there was still a tether that had yet to be severed. He had hoped it was because of him, of him still being alive and present versus being buried 6 feet below the ground, the fact that after school they came to the near abandoned Kavinsky mansion on the content of Henrietta nearly every day after school before they hit the streets with their revved engines and their cocaine addled minds.

It was a buzzing presence in the back of his mind, as he flashed from memories from before he went down mixed in with a few of those he could never recall. Kavinsky would cajole him out of bed, the movement and his mind returning to himself for once after so long. Like life was being breathed into him by his counterpart, eyes hidden behind the mirrored lenses of those white sunglasses with the once healthy tanned skin only slightly tinged with sickliness onset by drug addiction appearing ghastly and near translucent in these dreams.

Funny how it always came down to a dream.

It only took seconds before they were in the familiar car, the bass shaking the seats and filling Prokopenko with that adrenaline he so dearly enjoyed-- he couldn't understand the way that timed passed. it jumped in sequences and sometimes went straight to the point where the police lights would light up the interior of the car with alternating red and blue lights, he couldn't remember the events that had led up to the cops' sirens asking them to pull over with the jolting force that made him miss being truly alive.

The harsh noise from the speaker on the car behind them acted more like the beginning of a chase, a pursuit that would garner the attention of every in this half in the state of Virginia.

Something was different about this versus the other times.

300 horses proves him right.

300 horses couldn't harness the power he saw before him.

300 NOS tanks could only wish their speed compared.

"Did you dream up a new car?" Proko had to shout over the music, the vulgar Bulgarian rap spat over a filthy track, K had said that they knew the boy who had made the song, but he had no recollection about that kid at all. He would just take his word for it and nod. The question was asked again, louder and stronger, no longer drowned out.

"Funny story. This car dreamed me." Kavinsky had pulled ahead, pushing them both back into the soft white leather upholstery with the new force of an engine that appeared to be forever adapting to it's owner's needs. Like it had a life of its own and learned from the way it's passengers reacted, a tapped lifeline into both of their beings.

 

"Cars can't dream." The answer was ingrained, he pushed aside the idea of the car being anything more than a dream object.

"But you do."

Lost time. It happened again.

They were rarely ever out of the car, Kavinsky would make appearances the moment the rumor of his death was uttered. The high beams flashing on in front of the group of teens standing around with a bottle of vodka passed and powder dusting the inside of their nostrils, fear wasn't a word that they were familiar with. Their cushioned lives, their wealth, and their carefree demeanor, they didn't know the half of the fear of the dead appearing when nobody was looking and challenging them with pristine car, a beauty just as much it was startling.

The tint of the windows kept the speculation going, it kept the story and the inhabitants of the vehicle alive, it kept its competitors in the dust and the hopes of the broken pack up, but they wouldn't dare touch that car. They wouldn't dare pull on the handle and face being denied access, the death of their friend was almost too much to handle, the rejection from said friend would end up being too much. They hung by a fraying thread and the fear instilled by Kavinsky before was everlasting.

You don't touch K's things unless Kavinsky says you can.  
You don't touch the car unless Kavinsky says you can.  
You don't touch Prokopenko unless Kavinsky says you can.

Cigarettes burn to their filters in wait of an inhale, in a wait to be useful it was destroying itself, burning to ash mere inches away from K’s lips. He didn’t need to breathe. This has to be some sort of dream.

He was dead and Proko knew it. The only issue was why he still felt so alive, larger than life than ever before. But sometimes when he caught the other’s eye in the rear view mirror there was a monster glancing back at him, twisted on the outside as he was twisted on the inside.

Kavinsky never took his sunglasses off. Prokopenko already knew why.

Fast forward: He was back in his bed with the walls covered in the posters he didn’t have the ability to take down, his mind fading so slowly that it would take an eternity before it was gone, if it ever did really go away.

Jiang would visit him the most, stumbling in after wrecking his car and leaving the Supra in a smoking heap curled around a utility pole that stood like a silent obelisk, no wonder why his father approved of the Toyota to begin with, it kept his son alive. Mr. Jiang was an adamant enemy of the Ferrari that his son had told him he wanted for his 15th birthday. His father thought he was funny when he said that Jiang had to keep “moving forward” like Toyota and accept this gift as it is. There was no use in arguing and there was no use in stealing that credit card and buying the car he really wanted with it. What he did instead was completely turn his gift into the car he wanted. Body kits, engine upgrades, completely reworking it until the only thing that resembled the original was the semi-long nose of the hood. He was reprimanded, of course but also praised by taking initiative. His punishment was boarding school, but he couldn’t help but think the real punishment was more recently dealt as he mourned the loss of two friends. Jiang was using the wall to hold himself up, his bloody palm print standing stark on the white wall, his words were slurring and he seated himself slowly in the armchair closest to Prokopenko’s bed, vertigo and nausea overcoming him with heavy eyelids and a tiredness that ached in his bones.

“I tried, I fucking tried.”

_I can tell._

He could tell that the coke only made it worse, he could tell that the short life of that high wasn’t doing it and that instead of that white powder, Jiang had his forearms littered with track marks and heroin hidden under the seat of his car. Black tar was the best he could get in the area, he wasn’t at the point of driving a hundred miles for something just a little purer.

But he’d get there.

His bones jutted out of him and his cheeks hollowed out, eyes dug in with deep dark circles. If Kavinsky had taught them anything, it was that you never go half way.

You never say no.

You keep going until it kills you.

Or you kill yourself.

It didn’t have to end at that point, it never actually did, it went on long after. Death wasn't permanent, it was fluid and forever taking shape under K's will. He wouldn't let it stand in the way of his family and did what he knew best, stole what he wanted and ran.

As far as Prokopenko could tell Jiang was half dead sitting there with him, his consciousness on the verge of collapse and at risk of falling into a coma right by his side ad he realized sometimes a savior didn’t come with kind words. It came in the form of a needle, a powder, a pill, or even death. It came in the form of a boy who was lost long before he had died in the show of fire and chaos.

Maybe Kavinsky felt it too, if he had a soul it would be the one he shared with his friends.

Lost time, again.

A flash of something unreal.

Fast forward.

It’s probably just a dream. But they all knew better, this was reality and reality is what Kavinsky dreamed for them.


End file.
